“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1
Our nation is now starting to form (remember we are back in the early 1600’s). We are still being considered as under Britain. More people from Britain arrived with royal charters to establish new colonies. In 1636, the Connecticut Colony was established.
The same year, a man, Roger Williams was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He established the Providence Plantations which would eventually become the state of Rhode Island.
But who was this Roger Williams?
He was a Puritan. He had started to question the beliefs of the Puritans and the authority of the Puritan church which preached conformity to their rules. In 1636, he established Providence Plantations after being expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He wanted a place of refuge and termed his place, “liberty of conscience.”
This made Rhode Island the first western government to provide religious freedoms to the people. The First Amendment of our country was directly affected by Williams’ ideas for religious tolerance and civil government.
He became a Baptist for a short and established the first Baptist Church in the New World; in Providence. I remember seeing this beautiful church when I was a teenager many years ago. The history of the New England states had such an impact on me as a young person. I realized that so many people had worked hard and sacrificed much for me to be standing where I was that day.
Williams was also conscience of the Indians who inhabited the land he wanted to colonize. He did not just settle into the Narragansett Bay area but he first established a trade agreement with the Indians.
The name Providence can be attributed to his love for his God and his desire to follow in His will.
Sometimes personal godly convictions mean more than going with even the seemingly religious crowd. Williams stood up for his beliefs against the Puritan church and because of this we had a Baptist church form in our great nation as far back as the 1630’s. He wanted freedom to worship and live for God as an individual and not how others told him to live.
“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Galatians 5:13